1. Field
The present disclosure generally relates to the transmission of data over a network, and more particularly to the use of a computing device to load data communicated over a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Web pages that are commonly loaded in web browsers often include links to scripts (e.g., JavaScript) and style sheets (e.g., Cascading Style Sheets or “CSS”). Style sheets include style information and/or rules for multiple web pages and for multiple computing platforms. When a web browser begins downloading a web page that may include a link to a script, the web browser, and more particularly a Hypertext Markup Language (“HTML”) parser, begins parsing through the web page and pauses when encountering a linked script (or a style sheet upon which the script depends) to load and execute before resuming parsing. While the HTML parser waits, a HTML pre-load scanner may continue to parse (“speculative parsing”) through the web page as it loads without pausing in order to identify and initiate loading of any externally specified resources in the HTML, such as style sheets, images, fonts, audio, or video.
When the web browser begins downloading a style sheet identified in a web page that is being loaded, the web browser, and more particularly a style sheet pre-load scanner, begins parsing through the style sheet as it is loaded. The style sheet pre-load scanner, however, is limited to downloading other style sheets that are linked to in the style sheet being loaded and parsed. In addition to other style sheets, the style sheet being loaded and parsed may also link to other externally specified resources, such as images, that are needed by the web page but that will not begin loading by the web browser until after the web page has completed downloading in the web browser.